Saturday, May 31, 2008

Remember my review of "Spider-Man 3"? I complained about one scene where Spider-Man battles a berserk crane, since that seemed like a pretty lame opponent:

In a movie in which we already had three villains (Venom, Sandman and the New Goblin), we really had to have a scene with an out-of-control crane?? At first I thought the crane might tie into another plotline, but no, it's just an out-of-control crane. (The one redeeming part of this scene was that the crane destroys my brother's office building.)

Saturday, May 24, 2008

There's a commercial for Quizno's where a woman eats a five-dollar bill.

Even more disturbing is a KFC commercial for a new chicken sandwich. The ad wizards who did the commercial decided to put a subliminal dollar bill within the lettuce of the sandwich. Is this effective? Do I really want to eat money? Where has this money been?

The action scenes were well orchestrated and thrilling. And Harrison Ford didn't seem overly old or ridiculous. But something was a little off.

For one, I think the "civilian" scenes, when Indy is in his professor guise, were a little too campy. They have a dreamy look to them that I'm sure was very deliberate, but they just came off as hokey. Especially the final scene.

Another problem, and this requires a *SPOILER WARNING*...

All of the Indiana Jones movies have had a big dose of the supernatural. But what made it palatable before was that it was steeped in our culture's Judeo-Christian beliefs. So even if kooky stuff was happening with the Ark of the Covenant and melting faces, etc., you knew that it was based on stuff that we as a people actually believe in (or, at least, our politicians say we do).

With this movie (and, to a lesser extant, with "Temple of Doom"), the mythology is outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. In fact, it's some crap about aliens from another dimension. It didn't really fit the franchise and threw the whole story line into a sci-fi realm. It was kind of like that Tintin where they find those alien statues in the cave ("Flight 714")...pretty much the worst Tintin ever (unless we're counting the one with grossly offensive African caricatures).

I'm not saying it was terrible. But I don't think it's a worthy addition to the franchise. BuboBlog gives it **1/2 stars (out of four).

Monday, May 19, 2008

We had a great tourguide for our latest trip to D.C. (BuboBlog District of Columbia Correspondent Liz) and got to see some new neighborhoods.

On Saturday we rode the Metro and visited U Street, a hip area filled with restaurants and clubs. Riding the D.C. Metro is always a little funny because it's basically Bart -- only slightly nicer. Bart was first, though, so I feel like we can claim to be the Disneyland to their Disneyworld.

D.C. metro planners also seem to have a problem with excessively long station names. The one we got off on U Street was called "U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo" station. What a mouthful!

And maybe I'm revealing my own ignorance here, but I didn't even know there was a civil war between Africa and America. I feel like I would have heard about this.

Well, walking around the Washington D.C. area this weekend, I see that they've taken to the countdown clocks with a vengeance.

In fact, they appear to have taken the concept TOO FAR!

Instead of counting down from the last moment when you can safely start crossing the street, D.C. countdown signals often start counting down from a minute. I even saw one in Georgetown that counted down from like 75 seconds. What good is that? For people who think, "Hmm...I might like to cross the street in a bit, but first I'll stop in and get a sandwich."

We just got back from D.C., where we saw the premiere of my latest one-act, "Solitaire."

It was really cool. Definitely one of the best productions of anything I've ever written. With some of the lines, I wasn't sure if they would work on-stage, but the actors totally pulled them off -- using acting!

My play ended the night after two other one-acts. Afterwards, there was a reception and a lot of people came up to me and said really nice things about the play. They also had apparently Googled my name and thought I was a professor at NYU or something. I had to tell them I was a different guy. Fortunately I loaded up on brownies and boxed wine before they could call security and ask me to leave.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Have you read about these new homeless meters that they plan to put up in San Francisco? They work like parking meters, only you stick change in there for homeless charities -- rather than giving it to panhandlers.

I'm excited to see this concept in action. I can imagine me winking at a guy begging for change, pulling out a calfskin coin purse and then -- PSYCH!! -- sticking the coins in a nearby meter.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

We bought a new car over the weekend (okay, not really "new," more like previously not owned by us)...a model called a Mazda6.

I feel like we should have gotten some kind of hybrid, but since we hardly ever drive, it didn't really make sense cost-wise. Plus it's probably not very eco-friendly to produce a massive battery system (with all the future toxic waste that entails) if it's not really needed. But maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better.

I will say, we got a lot of pressure at one of the dealers to buy an SUV (especially after they saw that Kelly was El Preginente). Apparently there are a lot of them sitting on dealer lots right now. Given the price of gas, I wonder who is still purchasing SUVs. But then I also wonder who is still naming their children Madison (and it was the fifth most popular name last year).

Thursday, May 01, 2008

So I've been writing a script for Script Frenzy, which challenges people to write a screen or stage play of at least 100 pages in one month. Anyway, I passed the 100-page mark tonight at 11:55 p.m., so I won the challenge! (Barely.)